


Penstemon

by Cirth



Series: Canary-Yellow Cape [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, CSA, Character Study, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, dick's wonderful time in juvie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24737530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirth/pseuds/Cirth
Summary: They confiscate his clothes first.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: Canary-Yellow Cape [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571497
Comments: 51
Kudos: 320





	Penstemon

Thanks to VirusZeref for the sensitivity reading and Steph and byeke for the beta.

Penstemon

They confiscate his clothes first.

"We'll keep them safe for you," the social worker – Miranda or Marissa – says. Her glasses have remained clamped to the bridge of her nose for the better part of three hours.

"Do I get them back?" asks Dick.

She ticks something off her clipboard. "If someone decides to foster or adopt you."

"I thought...this wasn't an orphanage?"

She tuts.

Dick tugs at the scratchy green T-shirt with 'Gotham' printed over it in bold letters, like a beacon, or a target. Standard-issue. Everyone wears it. This is what they tell him.

The skin beneath his ID wristband itches.

He is instructed to hand over everything. Duffel bag with Zitka. Wad of cash (euros and dollars) he had foraged from his mother's purse and father's trouser pockets. Toothbrush. That is, everything he owns. At the end he feels not-himself, blank, as if someone has taken a duster and wiped his face clean off.

Miranda or Marissa takes him down a hall to a room with two bunk beds and puts his bedsheet and blanket and new toothbrush on the lower left bunk. No one else is there; his roommates are with the other boys, in the dusty weed-straggled courtyard. Their faraway shrieks float in and out of Dick's range of hearing.

"Here we are," says Miranda or Marissa. Dick decides he will settle on one name later, when he is less tired. His eyes are dry and red and dragging shut. His throat aches.

She says This is your dorm. This is your bed. Don't make trouble, kids like you make trouble, this isn't the circus. Whisper: Dear God, an actual _cir_ cus child. Normal voice: Can't imagine those hygiene habits you picked up. You shower every day here, wash your hands before meals. Do you understand? Praise be, he understands. Read the white board out in the hall for the meal schedule. You hmmm, you _can_ read I take it? Hmph.

She leaves. The room isn't any colder for it.

Dick sits on his bed. It creaks like an old swing. "I already shower every day," he says to the wall. (Well. He fills – filled – a bucket with water and used that.) He lies down, curls up with his shoes still on. "And I wash my hands." He closes his eyes. "I wash them after meals, too."

Dinner is in two hours. Dick does not move. Someone comes in while he is still lying down, rummages around, and leaves without a word. Eventually he peels himself off the bed and drags himself outside – to realise he has no idea where the cafeteria is. After wandering aimlessly for a while, he asks a janitor who is mopping the floor with a focus like he was personally sent by God to do it.

The cafeteria is loud, with too many people, and Dick does not want people right now. 

He stands in line and gets his food and sits down in a corner, away from everyone else. Soup, fried bread, boiled carrots with beans. His stomach roils.

Halfway into his meal a lanky boy with dirty blond hair makes himself comfortable next to him and says, "You're the new kid, right? I'm your roomie." When Dick stares at him, he says, "Kevin."

"Dick."

Kevin makes a face. "Seriously? Why would you do that to yourself?"

Dick eats a spoonful of his tepid soup.

"Potato soup's gross," Kevin continues, gesturing with his chin at Dick's plate. His hair quivers at his jawline.

Dick looks down at his tray and thinks of the thick, starchy potato soup they would get on Thursdays for dinner at Haly's. He liked his with black pepper and his father liked his with chilli pepper and they both preferred the tomato soup they got on Mondays.

He pushes the tray away. Then he pulls it back because his mother told him it was a sin to waste food.

The next day as he is drying his hair after a shower with a spare set of clothes, Kevin tosses him a rolled-up newspaper. "That you, isn't it? It's yesterday's. Thought you might not have read it, since. You know."

Dick blinks blearily, and then unrolls the paper; his eyes take a moment to focus. He has not slept for three nights.

It's not in the headlines. But it is on the front page. The article uses words like "tragic" and "spectacle" and "unfortunate". Dick feels a surge of anger that someone has compressed it: Danny Poteet's shoe left on the ground in his rush to dither over the cadavers, the light stabbing Dick's eyes, the music spinning a dainty tune. They have wrapped it in sensationalism and tied it with delicate serif print. Sieved out the ugliness of it.

"Hey, man, you okay?" Kevin is saying.

Dick hands it back to him.

It does not matter how many times Dick says that the newspaper was wrong, that it had not been an accident. The boys pelt him with questions at the cafeteria, crowding around his table. Your parents were _mur_ dered? No way. It's true. You're full of shit. Be quiet. Guards catch you lying they'll beat you. Yeah they will. Beat up Lenny. Put him in solitary. I mean – yeah, he tried to bite the guard's nose off but. Oh, bloody hell. Just. Stop talking. You'll get the rest of us into trouble, sitting there lying.

***

In truth, he should have expected the older boys. They'd been eyeing him for two days flat. Dick couldn't pin the emotion in their gazes. It was not hunger, but it was a sister. Not quite hostility and not quite disdain. In the cafeteria. In the courtyard. In the hallways. Kevin had told him, in hoarse whispers, to be careful. Repeated their names. (Josh. Ronald. Lucas. The first is in for dealing drugs. The other two for attempted assault.) Dick could not bring himself to care.

Later he wishes, for a moment, that he had. Then he realises it wouldn't have made any difference.

His roommates do nothing as he is dragged to the floor and pushed to his knees. They lie in their beds and pretend to sleep. Dick is so shocked he allows the boys to manhandle him. The world is reduced to shuffles and low voices and his vision lurches like a shaky camera. His skin is scuffed by the old, gnarly wooden floor.

"You bite, we cut your throat. _Capische_?"

It's disgusting. Dick doesn't think washing his mouth any number of times could get rid of the taste. The knife at his carotid presses down, just a fraction. Humiliation sears him.

He bites.

The scream can probably be heard on the other side of the centre.

" _Jesus_ Chri – "

"The creepy little – "

Dick is caught by the neck and hauled up. His mouth is full of blood.

The next morning, when he limps back from the infirmary, left arm in a cast and bruises mottling his skin, Kevin sticks his head out from over the bunk. "I'm sorry I didn't help. It's nothing personal," says Kevin, a little desperately. "They woulda killed me, man. They woulda killed me."

Dick steps towards his bunk and staggers.

"It's a good thing the guards heard, yeah?"

Dick lies down.

"Richie?" says Kevin. "Dick?"

Dick thinks muzzily, _I hate you_. He thinks, _Tu brûleras en enfer_. He thinks, _Te aves yertime mander tai te yertil tut o Del._ The room swims in and out of focus, and when he drifts into a fitful sleep he dreams of the Sunday prayers he'd sit in for sometimes and his head echoes with alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

When he wakes, the boys are trickling out and a glance at the clock tells him there is class in twenty minutes. Class, like at a school, except no one is forced to attend them, and Dick doesn't see a point. He was always going to be an acrobat, so he never focused on his studies, though everyone insisted he was bright, and now...now he will be nothing.

He is about to doze off again when there is a sharp rap on the door. Dick lifts his head to find a teenager with dreadlocks and vitiligo by the doorframe. "Hey, kid," he says, "you okay? I heard what happened." His voice is bereft of cadence, his eyes soft but hazy, like a field filled with mist. "My name's Chinedu. You gonna get to class?"

"Why do you care?"

"That's some attitude for a six year old."

"I'm not. _Six_."

"Five, then."

Chinedu keeps chattering at Dick in bits and spurts throughout the day in an obvious effort to get his mind off what happened, so Dick learns things about him without meaning to: He is fifteen. His parents split when he was eleven. He is in for murdering his paternal uncle, who had been raping Chinedu's younger sister for nigh on a year. Dick turns to look at him when he says that. He finds it bizarre that you could be jailed for something like that; it seems like an abomination against nature.

"Do you play chess?" says Chinedu that evening, his books still tucked under his arm.

"No."

"I can teach you," says Chinedu, rocking back on his heels, in a generous, charitable sort of tone, as if chess is one of those things that must be learnt, like tying your shoelaces or chopping vegetables and Dick's education has so far been somewhat lacking.

The chessboard is small and magnetic, one of those portable things meant for travel. A couple of pieces are missing, so they use stones from the courtyard.

The conversation is unevenly weighted. They seesaw back and forth, Chinedu asking him questions and Dick responding largely with monosyllables. How old are you? Eight. What you in for? Dunno. You want to be adopted? No. Then what? What?

Dick clutches a knight. It digs into his finger. "There's a man. Out there. He – I want him – " _Dead, fuck, shit, God, dead, dead, dead._ He thinks all the words his parents never taught him, the words he'd half whisper, half laugh out with the boys behind the stables. It was more pointless than a chat with your barber, but no one could stop them, so it was thrilling." – to suffer." To drain the blood from him, to wrench his feet backwards, to drop him, again and again, from fifty feet up.

"And then?"

"Then I can die." Well. He can die knowing he satisfied his spite. Better than not.

Chinedu looks evenly at him. "Do you want to die?" he asks, in the way you might ask, _Do you want to learn Italian?_

"No." He wants to live, but he only wants to live _with his parents_.

"So act cute. You're a little old but some people are desperate enough or just don't have the time for a baby."

"I don't want new parents."

"Consider them caretakers. Just till you're eighteen. Then you're free as a bird. That's checkmate."

Dick looks at the board. He does not care that he lost.

***

Chinedu's mother – a harried-looking woman with a bright orange purse – comes to visit next week. The security officer lets her in only after a bribe, and he nods and says, "You're a good woman," as soon as he takes the wrinkled notes. She does not reply. She pushes past him and takes Chinedu's face and kisses him on the forehead and Dick's toes curl in jealousy.

***

He does not _forget_ to put on his shoes, but he does forget to bring them with him.

***

Only days later the place is buzzing with the news that Bruce Wayne wants to take Dick Grayson as his ward. The first thing Dick thinks, dazed, is, _Batman didn't lie to me_ , even as Chinedu thumps him on the back _._ It will be a process wrung through miles of bureaucratic tape and take months, even for a man of Mr. Wayne's wealth.

Not all voices are congratulatory.

"Huh. He'll be crawling back in a day," Lucas says from his table in the cafeteria. The guards had let him and the other boys off with a slap on the wrist and little else.

Chinedu holds Dick by the shoulders. "Fuck off, Lucas, he's gonna live in that fancy Wayne manor while you rot in here. Nobody's going to want _you_." 

Lucas continues gleefully, planting his feet on the floor, "He's gonna put his hands all over you. That's what rich single guys do. Take in little boys and fuck them in the ass. Even if you complain and people believe you it's the only thing anyone will remember you for, the kid Bruce Wayne fucked in the ass – "

"He's jealous," says Chinedu, propelling Dick away out of the cafeteria. "You're gonna have a good life, kid. Bruce Wayne is _rolling_. You can go to college, be an – accountant, or a doctor. Eh? Doctor Grayson. Has a nice ring. You'll be a doctor by the time you're thirty. _He_ won't. He'll just be a pimp, if he's not dead."

"If I'm not dead, either," Dick puts in. Chinedu sighs, and Dick says, "Thank you," because he really, really ought to, because Chinedu is good and kind and has – helped him cling to living.

Chinedu smiles, like he knows what Dick means.

Miranda or Marissa (whose name turns out to be Meredith) is the one who formally informs Dick, walking down the hallway as her heels go _click clok click_ and he trots to keep up. "Don't I have anything to say about this?" Dick asks.

"You should thank your stars you _found_ a foster parent this quickly. A child your age is not the most desirable candidate for placement."

Dick is numb to the words. "But shouldn't I meet this guy first?"

"Mr. Wayne is not a 'guy', Richard. He is one of Gotham's first citizens."

 _And what are we_ , thinks Dick. _Second, third?_ If he'd run away, he'd have been off Gotham's radar entirely. Another disappeared child, not even a statistic. No numbers attached. No opinions attached. He could have killed Tony Zucco.

He could have gotten away with it. 

The same day he is called into the warden's office. He gets anxious when he sees the man, a Mr. Karlsson, but Mr. Karlsson only gestures to the chair in front of the desk and says, "Richard, sit down."

Dick sits.

"Can I get you anything? Water? Cookies?"

Dick shakes his head. He did not even know they kept cookies at the centre.

"All right," says Mr. Karlsson, nodding and stroking his moustache. "All right, then." He steeples his twiggy fingers. "Listen, you're a good boy, yeah? Your parents raised you right?"

Dick wonders where this line of questioning is going. "I hope so," he says carefully.

"Good, good. Then you'll do me a small favour. Just a little one, no real effort required on your part." He raises his eyebrows at Dick. "If Mr. Wayne asks how your time was here, you can tell him it was good. We took good care of you. Those boys didn't bother you again, did they?"

"No." Dick does not miss the wording. _Those_ boys hadn't bothered him again, but he'd been beaten almost to death by another bunch. Somehow, Dick does not think bringing that up right now would be appreciated.

"Excellent. You'll do that, right? Tell him everything was peachy keen." Mr. Karlsson's pale blue eyes are piercing.

Dick squirms, twisting the hem of his T-shirt. "Okay."

A firm nod, satisfied, a little too vehement. "Good lad. You can go now, Richard, that's all I required."

"My clothes?"

Mr. Karlsson stares at him.

"May I get my clothes back?"

"Ah, hrm, hrm. Yes, let me – I'll call the – "

***

Everything about this house is weird. He gets the feeling he is being lied to, though he couldn't tell you about _what_. He's not even sure if Alfred's name is really Alfred. (He certainly looks like an Alfred, at any rate.) Bruce Wayne himself has been elusive – he gallivanted off with some B-list model thirty seconds after meeting Dick and saying, Make yourself at home.

Dick will get a better idea about him at dinner. There is a lot you can tell from the way a person eats – even more from how they treat the wait staff.

Except he does not get a better idea at dinner, because the chair meant for Bruce Wayne at the other end of the table is vacant.

"He has work," says Alfred.

 _He works?_ is what Dick thinks.

And so the meal is an affair at the head of a long table with Alfred serving him foods that sound fancy but don't actually taste that good. Then there are ice cream sandwiches, great thick ones wrapped in butter paper and already melting in the summer heat. Dick's never had ice cream sandwiches before. He always wanted to try them but his diet was regimented, his parents kept saying, "After the next show." Now there will not be a next show. 

He can't stand the idea of eating those ice cream sandwiches. He asks to be excused.

***

Dick is instructed not to go up to the rooftop (along with a string of other places, so he wonders if Mr. Wayne is hiding bodies), which is why he does it a day later. He squats and peers at the haze over Gotham, wondering where Zucco is, if he is sleeping, if he is murdering someone else's parents. His secret trip to Haly's hadn't given him any clues.

There is a whisper of cloth, and Dick gets the feeling he only hears it because Batman wants him to.

"You went out there tonight. To the circus. Don't bother denying it."

Not so secret, then.

"What are you doing here?" says Dick sharply. "What do you know about me?" Apparently telling Dick to go back to bed when he'd been clambering out of the youth centre barefoot hadn't been enough. Dick should be concerned that Batman knows where he lives, but instead he is relieved to see an old face. Well. An old mask.

"I know enough."

About Zucco, Dick can hear. "I keep thinking about what happened. My father always checked the lines. It wasn't an accident."

Batman looks away. "I found traces of acid on the ropes. Just enough."

Dick stands up. His heart hammers. "I want to help."

"You will. Later. I promise."

At least Batman's promises are good for something. Dick does not like the idea of _later_ , though. He blurts, "I remember seeing a guy talk to Mister Haly. He said something about how it'd be a real shame if something happened to my – " The words catch in his throat. "He was a big fat guy."

Batman does not acknowledge this. He says, You should go back inside, and leaves.

Dick looks after him. Then he works off his shoe and throws it as hard as he can at the dark space below where Batman had disappeared.

***

In Dick's defence, he had not expected the chandelier to come undone from the ceiling.

In the time that it takes him to shake himself out of the shock, Bruce comes careening into the room and stands there flapping his mouth, looking at Dick and the place where the chandelier used to be and back at Dick again. "Dick, what – what were you thinking? You could have killed yourself."

His concern rolls right off Dick, who picks some glass out of his hair. "I'm a Flying Grayson. I was flying." Or, he had been attempting to. He casts a cautious glance at the mangled thing. It had been ugly, anyway. "I'm sorry about the chandelier," he says, because he is supposed to, even though he does not feel sorry.

Bruce looks incredulously at him. "To hell with the chandelier, Dick, I'm worried about _you_. Are you all right?"

Dick wiggles, testing his legs. In working condition. "Yes." He starts to get up.

"Your hands," blurts Bruce. "They're bleeding."

Dick looks down in surprise. His hands are hard with calluses – it is not easy to make them bleed. And yet – they are.

"Here, let me." Bruce steps towards him, dithers, looks in the direction of the kitchen. "Alfred is busy making dinner," he says. "I can disinfect that for you."

Dick hesitates.

"We'll have to clean that or it will get infected," Bruce is saying.

Dick reminds himself that Lucas was just being spiteful. It helps, in the way a Band-Aid helps a laceration.

He follows Bruce into a bathroom, where he sits on the toilet lid and Bruce gets some Dettol and cotton from the drawers. "Thank goodness you've only got some scrapes," says Bruce, examining Dick's palms. "A fall like that...you're very lucky, Dick."

Dick looks at him. "I don't feel lucky." He doesn't know why he said that, what possessed him to use that kind of honesty.

Bruce does not reply to that. He cleans, quiet, with efficient strokes. There are faint lines on his face, like scars.

Dick squints. "Are you wearing makeup?"

Bruce looks up. "What?"

"Makeup. You're – wearing makeup. Is that normal for you?" A pause. "You look like you've got scars."

Bruce just stares at him.

"Lots of people have scars," Dick tries, wondering if he has upset him, and growing uneasy under the weight of those pale eyes.

"No," says Bruce, and his tone is not quite curt but not quite easy either, "I'm not wearing makeup."

 _You're lying_ , thinks Dick, _you're a liar, everyone in this house is a liar_ , but lets Bruce wrap his hand in a bandage and secure it.

***

Dick had never been so picky an eater.

Bruce gestures at the plate of cucumber sandwiches with a sigh. He'd brought them to Dick in his room for teatime, without asking. "You won't know until you've tried them."

"I've tried them. I don't like them." He has no opinion of them, but he does not want to eat them. Not in this house, not with these people. Not till Bruce Wayne understands he cannot bring cucumber sandwiches to Dick and just expect him to eat them.

And Bruce Wayne says, "Dick, I – I _understand_."

It is like a wire snapping.

Dick's whine is more animal than child. He crouches down, puts his head between his knees. Says You. Says Are a rich man. Says This is your home. _Your_ home. It's dark it has so many shadows I want the light. Can't you open some curtains. No don't say my name don't. I'm just your toy. When will you throw me away, I want you to throw me away. This city is cursed. You're cursed. 

He's screaming now, garbled, mixing up his English with his French, his French with his Romani. His face is hot with tears. Bruce has his hands up as if Dick's pointing a gun at him. Alfred runs in wearing a stained apron and says What the hell is going on, what did you do Master Bruce.

I didn't do an – God, Alfred, just help me.

Master Richard. Dick. Boy, it's all right, come here, yes, that's it. You're fine, my boy, you are perfectly fine. There we go, ouf, you're heavier than you look. Shall we get you some hot milk? Does that sound good?

Next thing Dick is being set on the kitchen counter and he hugs his knees while Alfred rummages around, and then a mug is being pressed into his hands. He brings it to his lips but does not drink, still crying. Alfred tuts, but then, in a gesture that surprises Dick, hops up to the counter next to him with a soft grunt. He puts an arm around Dick and Dick leans into him. The sun dips in the sky.

He does not see Bruce for the rest of the day.

That night after he burrows into his bed and lies awake for an hour, the door opens and after a beat the mattress dips. Dick does not move. Alfred smells nice. He always smells nice, like warm spice and clean cotton.

"Master Bruce is...concerned for you."

"Why did he bother taking me."

"Pardon?"

"He's always out. He's always with those girls. I've been here almost three weeks and we've eaten at the same table twice."

Alfred does not sigh, but his silence suggests he would have if he weren't so polite. (Proper, Dick's mother would have said Proper, and then laughed and added, Who decides what's proper, anyway?)

"To be sure," says Alfred, "Master Bruce has trouble expressing affection. But, I'm willing to bet, with some time, he will make more of an effort for you. And, though I am biased, I can tell you with surety that beneath about forty pounds of psychological body armour, he is a terribly kind and selfless ma – "

Dick does not believe Alfred, but he likes his voice, smooth and mellow, so he keeps quiet while Alfred talks and talks till sleep takes him.

***

The charity gala will start in an hour. Effectively it will be Dick's first performance outside the circus, except it will be acting, not acrobatics.

As Bruce is telling him he ought to know how to tie a tie, some guest arrives early, some man who bursts into the living room, throwing open his arms like Bruce and Dick are his long-lost relatives. He thumps Bruce on the back and ruffles Dick's combed hair and says, Brucie! Long time. You still say hi to the garbage collector in the mornings?

Bruce starts to put ice in two glasses and says Dick, why don't you go help Alfred in the kitchen, he's making hors d'oeuvres. Dick gets the feeling Bruce is trying to save him from something, so obviously after he shuts the door he puts his ear against it. His suit itches. The shoes are new and pinch his feet.

Mumbles, hums, pleasantry this that. When you getting yourself a wife, Wayne, you ain't getting any younger.

Glass clink, shoes shuffle. Carpet must be gross, how does Alfred clean anything here, people rubbing shoes all over carpets.

Haven't thought about it much, you know how I am, like those blondes on yachts too much. Haven't lived till you've drunk champagne with a blonde on a yacht.

Huff, laugh. Oh Bruce I know you took in that circus boy but you can't tell me that's enough. Man has needs.

Needs are all met.

Kid's difficult.

Heartbeat. Kid's grieving.

Shuffle shuffle, more dirt on carpet.

You should be careful with him Bruce, I know what these people are like, these carnies, these Gy – 

Tight voice, Dick is a bright and compassionate child.

Right. Course. Well. Glass clink.

Dick creeps away to the kitchen, something heavy in the pit of his stomach.

***

This time, Bruce asks. He doesn't just barge into Dick's room with a demand and a plate. He knocks and he doesn't come in even after Dick answers. "Do you like playing board games?" Bruce's fingers tap on the doorframe.

"They're okay," says Dick.

Bruce clears his throat. "Oh. Right." More finger tapping. "I, uh, don't suppose you play chess? If you don't, that, that's really no problem, we can play Ludo or Snakes and Ladders, or – anything you like, really. If you want to."

"I – " Dick is about to say "don't" and then remembers Chinedu taught him. (He hopes, ferociously, that Chinedu is all right.) "Yes, I do. Play chess."

Bruce's smile is relieved. It is also odd, lopsided in a strained sort of way, like he isn't used to smiling on impulse. His other smiles are broad and practiced and show off the white of his teeth.

They don't play on the floor, like at the centre, but at a table near a bay window, with a heavy marble set that looks like it may or may not have been bought at an auction.

"Do you want white?" Bruce asks. "White moves first."

Dick shrugs.

Bruce gives him white.

His questions and statements as they play are stilted, but he is...trying. He is trying. And as he talks his voice is deep and even and quiet and reminds Dick of still warm nights and Dick gets the feeling there is more to him than blondes on yachts and miraculously getting black eyes while playing tennis.

"So, what sports did you take part in at the center?" Bruce is saying.

"...Sports?" says Dick.

"Yes. Basketball, soccer, badminton?"

Dick stares. He still has his castle in his hand. He is winning, but he thinks that's because Bruce is going easy on him. "No?"

"What do you mean no?" Bruce says, frowning.

"There was a courtyard? Where we could run? And, um, there was a soccer ball, but it was kind of deflated."

"But I – " Bruce seems...one of those words that sound funnier than they are. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. "I sent them money. I told them to invest in everything from sports to education." He narrows his eyes. "And water? Did you have water?" he asks intently.

"To drink? Mostly. Sometimes we got thirsty because they ran out. And the showers didn't have any hot water, but I think that's fine in summer?" Dick is growing more and more confused. "They were – " Good. That is the word Mr. Karlsson told him to use, but he cannot bring himself to.

Bruce's face has taken on a marble-like hardness. He appears to grapple with himself for a moment, taking deep breaths and looking at a spot beyond Dick's shoulder. Then he looks at Dick, right into his eyes, and Dick leans back with the force of that gaze. "Were you made to do anything you didn't want to do?" Bruce asks quietly.

 _Plenty_ , Dick thinks. _I don't know how you mean that_ , Dick thinks. His mind goes back to that night, when he was on scuffed knees. He cannot make himself say anything – he holds the words in his mouth like water.

Bruce is silent. Dick does not like the colour of his stillness. Damn, says Bruce, damn, god- _damn_. He gets up, walks in a circle, sits down again, scrubs a hand over his face. Motherf – Sorry, Dick. I'll – I. Damn. He gets up again, straightens, and he's taller like this, bigger, hulking. Fingers curl and uncurl. I am so sorry, Dick. I should have – God. He takes his phone from his pocket and fiddles with it, cursing. "I'm going to need you to see Dr. Thompkins, Dick."

"I saw her before I came here."

Bruce does not reply. He starts to walk out the door, game apparently forgotten.

"Where are you going?" says Dick, getting to his feet.

"Business," says Bruce, and he says business as if he means taking a wrecking ball to a building made of sand.

***

The water helps. His hands are shaking so Bruce holds the glass to his mouth. Dick's nightclothes are damp with sweat.

"It will stop," says Bruce quietly. "The screaming. Eventually."

"Completely?"

Bruce puts the glass on the bedside table. "No. But I promise it gets better."

"What's your promise worth?" says Dick tiredly, pulling the quilt up over his mouth.

Bruce looks at him. His face is blank, like snow. "I hope it's worth something."

Silence.

"Why me?" Dick blurts. "Why not some other kid?"

Not a blink. "I saw myself in you."

"Because of your parents." One of the most high-profile murders Gotham had ever seen, turned into a spectacle by the media. _A circus_ , Alfred had called it once, viciously, and then winced and said, _Sorry, I did not mean – forgive me, boy._

A nod.

"So I'm," Dick swallows, "a way for you to sleep better at night?"

A crack in that snow, like the print of a bird's foot. "No. _No_. You've – you've brought light into my life. As – as my ward. As someone I have come to care about."

Dick looks at the glass on the table. It has the oil from Bruce's fingers on them. It will never have his father's, or his mother's, or Danny Poteet's, or Mr. Haly's. Their imprints on the world around him have been wiped.

"Dick?" says Bruce, alarmed.

Dick covers his face with the quilt, feeling it dampen and dampen. It is so soft, whispery white cotton with some ridiculous thread count instead of his old blue blanket with food stains on it.

He is going to need more water.

***

Dick doesn't know why Bruce gives him Zucco's location and allows him to go after him, but he does not ask about that. He asks if he can use explosives, and throwing stars, and a grapple gun.

Bruce says, You'll get those when I'm dead. Take your staff if you have to.

Dick shrugs. He asks if he can get a costume. Bruce says, You'll get _that_ when I finally go crazy.

***

Dick looks at Zucco. It. The corpse. Dick is scorched, singed.

His parents are still dead.

He wishes Zucco had died more painfully. He wishes he hadn't died. He wishes he had pushed him off a building. He wishes he hadn't died. A heart attack – a _heart attack_. It is cruel in how apt it is, it is cruel in how unapt it is.

"I didn't mean to," he whispers, choked. "I didn't mean to." His skin is hot beneath his clothes. The staff drops from his hands and clatters to the ground.

Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder and his palm is the size of Dick's face and his cape shifts and obscures Dick's vision. Then he is being lifted and carried to the car and strapped to the front seat, and he closes his eyes and says, "Why did you let me do that? Why did you – what – "

***

Gotham has a hunger to it.

That is what Dick's father said, at any rate. That it pulls at you when it wants something.

Dick isn't sure what it wants from him, but it's certainly taken plenty.

"Mr. Karlsson is in jail," he says, pulling his crayon across a sheet of paper. "That's what you were doing that day, right? When you got up and left? You went to the youth centre."

Bruce looks at him from his seat at the console. His cowl is down and his curls are plastered to his skull with sweat. "How do you know that?"

"I looked it up." Just a small cape. The canary-yellow of the Flying Graysons' trims. It will not get in the way. "On the computer." Terribly different to the Batman outfit. He likes it – a spot of brightness in the dark. "You must've had to pull a lot of strings for that." A thank you sits on the tip of his tongue, but it would seem a bit like groveling to say it, somehow. "I want to do that thing you do."

"What?"

"The solving crimes stuff. The saving people. I want to help save people." He wants no one to chase their parents' murderer through the streets and watch him die of a heart attack.

Bruce's typing does not stop. "You have my blessings to be a surgeon."

_Doctor Grayson. Has a nice ring. You'll be a doctor by the time you're thirty._

"I want to be a detective. I want to help people – find closure." It is...not the path he imagined for himself. But it is suitable. It is painfully, blisteringly suitable.

Bruce switches off the computer. Dick wonders if he learned it from Alfred, sighing without actually sighing. "I have a meeting in Metropolis next week and Alfred will be out of town. You'll be coming with me."

"To solve crimes?"

"To sit tight at a daycare centre while I take care of a board room full of vultures. Not a word, Dick," he adds, when Dick begins to protest. "Make some friends, play some games. Be an ordinary boy."

Dick looks down at his design, at the leotard and the cape and the greenyellowred. He begins to pencil in boots, ones that will let him move his ankles. "I am ordinary," he says.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> 💫 lilaclotuses.tumblr.com 💖
> 
> And our fabulous new zine about Bruce & Dick: https://dynamicduozine.tumblr.com/


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